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Video Transcript
Rebecca Powers 00:23
Welcome to this week’s edition of On The Money with Secure Money with Brian Quaranta. I am Rebecca Powers, and it is my honor to be here each week with Brian. He created Secure Money Advisors. And hello, by the way.
Brian Quaranta 00:36
Hello, good to see you again.
Rebecca Powers 00:39
As always, every weekend, we have so much fun. I love the path to how you got there. For our new viewers, I want you to know that he was in the big box model. We often refer to the difference between the big box experience and the independent fiduciary experience, and that big box taught you quickly that you wanted relationships, you wanted to educate, you wanted to inform. So, let’s jump right into your book. Right Track your retirement. He offers you this absolutely free that is really proving how much he wants you to have this information. It’s things they didn’t teach us in school. I’m going to go with the first chapter, if you don’t mind, what is the difference between investment plan and a retirement plan?
Brian Quaranta 01:18
Yeah, well, an investment plan is what most of us do while we’re working. We’re contributing to our company retirement plans like a, 401 K, a, 403 B, A, TSP, a, 457, plan. There’s all different types of company retirement plans. You also may be contributing to an IRA or a Roth IRA, and you’re investing for a long period of time, because you might start doing this when you’re in your early 20s, maybe your early 30s, and you’re constantly contributing every time you get paid. And this is something very important that we call dollar cost averaging. And so, it doesn’t matter where the market is. You’re always buying in at different levels. It’s the best way to purchase, but you have something very important on your side, and that’s time, time before you need the money. The retirement plan used to be simple, because most people used to retire with a pension and Social Security. This is why we had so many retirement parties. I mean, don’t you remember people having retirement parties?
Rebecca Powers 02:29
Absolutely, and you knew the date you could retire and how much money you would get to the penny, but that’s out of the window. But they never taught us how to do it for ourselves.
Brian Quaranta 02:37
Yeah, and it’s the biggest mistake that the financial planning community has made to the American public, the pension should have never been taken away, or if it was taken away, we should have been educating people on how to properly transition from the investment strategy to the retirement strategy, because the retirement strategy has a lot to do with now utilizing your money. How are you going to turn this into a source of income? Because the day you retire, the paycheck is going to stop, but bills, taxes and the money that you need Rebecca to do all the things that you want to do in retirement. I mean, people have plans. They want to travel. They want to go see their kids that have moved to different states. They want to go see friends, they want to take trips to wherever, and that takes money to do. How are you going to do that if you don’t have a source of guaranteed income? And the retirement plan is about five key areas. It’s about your income, it’s about your taxes, it’s about your investment strategy, your health care strategy, which a lot of people don’t talk about, if you have a health emergency, how to qualify for Medicare, how to sign up for Medicare. These are all things we do at our firm. And then the last one is when the good Lord decides to take you home, where is that money going to go? And how is it going to efficiently go to your beneficiaries, without the IRS becoming a big beneficiary of it. And in fact, for some people, since they don’t do any planning, this is what happens.
Rebecca Powers 04:07
That’s what happens. And you always say you have a silent partner in your checkbook, and it’s Uncle Sam. It is people don’t think. I bet nine out of 10 people come to you has never been spoken to about a forward tax plan for the rest of their lives and how much it could save them? Yes,
Brian Quaranta 04:21
because look at this. I mean, let’s say that you follow our model of what we call a a dual allocation, right? Not two bucket strategy, two bucket, non correlated assets, right? Where we take some money and we build an income strategy that is essentially a private pension for the rest of your life that will give you enough money to live off or for the rest of your life, including your Social Security, the money that you keep in the market that is truly becoming long term money now, and that changes the game, because you don’t have to worry about selling those accounts off in order to get income. And that’s the key to being successful with your money. Money is to making sure that that you have that long term time horizon. But if we want to tie that into tax planning, if you are allowing this money in your in the your retirement account to grow every single year, not only are you increasing the value of the account, but you’re increasing the tax bill, you’re increasing the tax bill. You’re compounding that tax bill as that retirement account goes up. So tax planning can be part of sweeping some of those gains off every year and converting that money to tax free money so that you can start to get Uncle Sam out of your life because you’re going to be forced to take money, whether you want to or not. Right now it’s at the age of 73 eventually it’s going to go to age 75 and when you’re forced to take money, if you haven’t done any tax planning now your IRA balance is this big, those required minimum distributions that you’re required to take may cause you to pay more money on your soul, taxes on your social security may cause you to pay a higher Medicare premium. So, this is why having a tax plan, a tax strategy, so important,
Rebecca Powers 06:08
right? The most likely, will make you pay more in all those areas. For sure, absolutely. Yes, all right. Chapter Two, think like a pensioner instead of a gambler. This is so powerful, and it’s absolutely seems like a no brainer, but most people aren’t spoken to about it, yeah?
Brian Quaranta 06:21
Well, go back, you know, 4050, years ago, when people retiring, they didn’t have to gamble with the money they saved, right? The money that they saved, they could actually be relatively conservative with. I mean, take my grandfather, for example. My grandfather had a Kirby vacuum cleaner store. Okay? He serviced Kirby vacuums for as long as I can remember, I used to work in the back servicing shop with him. He would teach me how to repair the vacuums, and the one thing he always taught me was how to treat the client the right way. And but I got the opportunity to go to the bank with him most days that I worked there, and he would lecture me about money on the way to the bank, he said, Brian, you’re going to work hard for your money make sure that when you invest it, you protect the principal so you can just live off the interest. Well, 4050, years ago, that’s because he was going to the bank, and he was buying bank CDs at 14, 15% interest, so he was able to get additional income from his accounts, right without, with no risk, with zero risk. So if you had $200,000 and you’re getting a 15% rate of return, that’s huge. That’s $30,000 a year in income without ever touching your principal. But it’s not like that anymore. It is not like that anymore. It’s not like that.
Rebecca Powers 07:38
We need to take a very short break. There’s the number on the screen let our new viewers know what it’s like to come in for that no obligation appointment. That’s absolutely free.
Brian Quaranta 07:46
Well, first off, folks, I want you to go to onthemoneyoffer.com and I want you to get a copy of the book. When you’re there, you’re going to be able to schedule a complimentary appointment. Now let me tell you a little bit about what that complimentary appointment is about. First off, it is not a sales appointment. It’s an appointment that is educational. We’re going to ask you questions. We’re going to find out about your situation, and the first thing we’re going to do is we’re going to determine, are you on the right track? Would you even be a good candidate for us to be able to help you? Because not everybody that comes to our office is a good candidate, and that’s okay, but we’re going to let you know that, because we’re not going to just move money to move money around, we’re going to help you, because we can make a difference. So, when you come in, expect that nobody from my team is ever going to press you to do anything, right? You’re never going to be asked to buy anything. But we are going to share with you things that we see that might be red flags if we do identify those things. If you want to make changes, that’ll be up to you. But the first place I want you to start is to go to onthemoneyoffer.com and get a copy of the book, or scan the QR code, or call 1-888-382-1298 my team is standing by right now to take your call, get you scheduled and get a copy of this book in your hands for absolutely no cost. I sent it to you free. I pay for the shipping and handling. It will show up in a gold envelope, and I want you to read through every page of it. And most people tell me, Brian, when I read your book, I was so frustrated because I didn’t know these things, and I was so angry at my advisor, because I thought to myself, gosh, we’ve wasted so many years on advice that was not in our best interest, and you have to make sure that you’re building a plan that gives you the security and peace of mind and confidence to get through retirement. So again, call the number 1-888-382-1298,
Rebecca Powers 09:41
And it’s laser focused on you and not a cookie cutter approach. That’s the most important thing. All right, save us. We’ll be right back. More how you can secure your money.
Brian Quaranta 09:51
Most people worry they’ll run out of money in retirement. Are you one of them? After decades of working, you deserve peace of mind knowing your money will last. 2030, even 40 years, maybe you want to leave some for your family after you’re gone. I’m Brian Quaranta, president of Secure Money Advisors, after getting to know you and hearing your goals, we build you a customized principal protection plan based on your unique needs, focusing on five key areas of retirement, secure money advisors helps you with things like income, investments, taxes, health care and legacy planning. We can right track your retirement. Let us show you how visit our website or call us to schedule a free meeting today.
Rebecca Powers 10:40
All right, welcome back. The show is called on the money with secure money. And the fiduciary firm is called secure money advisors. I mean, that is your whole goal, over and over and over, secure your money you worked hard for. Let’s protect it. All right. We’re just going through this wonderful book that you can get for free from Brian, number three, chapter three, leverage, the power of the two bucket strategy.
Brian Quaranta 11:02
This is where we talk about non correlated assets, right, where we’re separating money so that the money over here is not impacted by anything going on in the market. Now, again, as a fiduciary firm, that means we believe in all asset classes, but the question you have to ask yourself, is, how much of your money going into retirement really belongs at risk. And I always ask clients this, at this point in your life you’ve worked 3540, years for your money, are you more inclined to take a sure thing or a maybe at this point in your life, most clients will say, Brian, I want more of a sure thing. I don’t want to wake up every day wondering if my plan is going to work or not going to work. I want to know with a high degree of certainty that my spouse and I are going to be okay, or I’m just going to be okay. And that’s the type of plans that we’re building at secure money advisors. That’s why I named the company, secure money advisors and as a boutique planning firm, right? Our job is to make sure that we can make a big difference in your life, and one of the ways that we know that we can do that because the retirement system in America is broken today, because when you retire, you are retiring with an account that is invested in the market and is not designed for income. The Big Box firms are going to tell you things like, well, you could roll this money over and put it into dividend paying stocks and just pull the dividends off. Well, what are you going to get in dividends, three, 4% and then you’re going to pay an advisory fee of 1% so now maybe you’re only netting a 2% dividend, but you still are subjected to the losses of the stock itself. So, nothing’s really protected there. We feel that there’s a better way to do it, and I write all about it in the book, and that’s why we’re giving it away absolutely free, sending it to you, paying for the shipping and handling. That’s
Rebecca Powers 12:51
right. And that brings me to chapter four, protect yourself from big market swings. That is literally what destroyed people, yes, especially I remember in 2008 I was doing the six and 10 evening anchoring. And my co-anchor, he had been on national news. He had worked for years, and he literally felt faint. He would watch his stocks all the time, yes. And he put his and he said back, you’re gonna have to do to do the 10 o’clock show tonight. I need to go home in 2008 he lost because he was still at the highest risk. Yes, devastating. He worked eight more years and still didn’t make up what he had lost. You
Brian Quaranta 13:26
know, I’m so glad that you brought that up, because so many people’s lives were devastated during that period of time. You know, the joke was that your 401 K turned into a 201 K. But that, really, if you care about it, it wasn’t a joke, because it impacted so many people. And the thing is, I saw so many people that had a delay retirement, like this gentleman that you’re talking about, or even worse, had to come out of retirement because somebody convinced them, let it ride, that it was a good idea to take risk with your money. And folks, let me tell you something, it is really easy to tell somebody else to risk their money, especially if you get paid a fee or a commission to do it Amen. And this is why, when you look at how we build portfolios, people, you know, say things about annuities all the time that and they want to give them a bad rap, and they say, you know, an advisor only wants to sell an annuity because they’re commission hungry. Really, I would rather have all your money in the market because I make a fee. Whether the money goes the market goes up or down, anybody that invests money in the market for a fee makes more money than anybody selling an annuity because an annuity only pays the firm one time. That’s it. They never get paid again. Whereas money in the market gets paid year after year after year, and as your account balance gets bigger, the fee to the firm gets bigger. But the big thing is, if the account goes down, the firm still makes money, and most of. You are working with firms that are not even doing any planning for you, and you’re paying one to 2% a year and you’re not even getting any real planning, no income planning, no tax planning, no investment strategy planning, no healthcare planning strategy, and no estate and a legacy planning. These are the things that you have to really focus on, and you should be asking yourself, what am I getting for the feedback? What’s the value here that I’m getting? I’ve got no problem paying somebody to do something for me, but what value am I going to get from you on a annual basis for what? For what? You know, at secure money advisors, we have an annual review checklist that we go through so that we know that we’re checking off and making sure that every i is dot and every T is crossed. It’s holding us accountable. It’s holding you accountable that the plan is constantly being monitored and we’re looking at things on an annual basis to justify the small fee that we might charge in the investment portfolio. And since we’re not putting all of your money in an investment portfolio, our fee is significantly less than a lot of other firms out there.
Rebecca Powers 16:10
And look just the transparency of that, just the reports that you run, the third-party reports showing the past fees. Most of us in this same boat, we didn’t even know the fees we were paying. That’s right, there are hidden fees, and the laws don’t even protect the consumer, right?
Brian Quaranta 16:25
They don’t. And you know, the good thing is, there is some laws out there that are trying to make these fees more transparent. Because if you ask somebody, you know, how much is, how much does it cost you to be in your 401, K, they’re like, well, there is no fee to be in my 401, K. And that’s just inaccurate, right? As an employer, employing over 20 people that invest in our companies for 1k I know how much the company that’s handling our 401 k is charging us every single year in fees, but it’s not disclosed on the employee statements, and that’s one thing that most employees get wrong, is that they are being charged fees within their portfolio. They’re also being charged fees within the mutual funds that they’re buying within their 401 K, but it’s not being exposed, and it’s not transparent at all. If people really saw how much it was costing them, and then they asked themselves the question that I always ask you, to ask yourself, what value are you getting for the fee that you’re paying? What service are you really getting for the fee that you’re paying? There should be a process, a system that you’re you’re buying into to make sure that you’re getting the client service model that’s appropriate to your situation so that the fees can be justified. Look, every advisory firm needs to make money, period, right? Just like every painter, plumber, electrician has to make money, but there is a justification for the fee. If you have somebody that just is investing your money and you’re just earning and they’re earning a fee and they’re not continuing to proactively give you tax advice or do any tax harvesting or Roth conversions or any of these types of things that would be like a plumber coming to my house and just looking at my stuff and charging me a fee and not actually doing any work. And that’s not what I want to see people do. I want you to find someone that’s really going to work for you. Go to onthemoney offer.com get a copy of my book, schedule the complimentary appointment. The book is right here. It’s a simple planning guide to help give you peace of mind and confidence as you go through retirement. When you’re at the website. You can schedule the appointment, or you can just call 1-888-382-1298, the team is standing by to take your call and get you scheduled to come in.
Rebecca Powers 18:42
Absolutely and when you go to that landing page, if you have any concern or question, feel free to type it in there too, so we can be even more informed before we meet with you. All right, stay with us more with Brian Quaranta right after this.
Commercial Break 18:53
You’ve got quite an extensive resume. Wow, so many years of management. Bet that was fun. So this job requires basic knowledge of the social media and video platforms, content creation and SEO. How proficient Are you in those areas? Going back to work after retiring is not ideal. I’m Brian Quaranta with Secure Money Advisors. If you have amassed a nest egg, it’s time for a financial advisor to help you reach your retirement goals. This is one of the greatest tax windows in history. Now is the time to take advantage of this tax discount while you can we specialize in retirement planning, tax mitigation, estate planning and more. Plan your retirement right Call now for your complimentary portfolio review and tax analysis.
Rebecca Powers 19:47
All right, breaking up is hard to do. You know, if we had the stereo on right now, we’d play that old song, you know, right? So often you have the story about using the CPA for too long because you love her. How? Often, do people, out of loyalty, stay with their same advisor who hasn’t really been advising them?
Brian Quaranta 20:07
Well, yeah, a lot people stay with doctors that he shouldn’t stay with, right? You know, I’ll give you a perfect story, and I’ve told this before, but a good friend of mine, you know, was going to his doctor. He had high cholesterol. Doctor put him on cholesterol medication, and he was having memory loss from the cholesterol medication, which is a side effect for some people. So he had, he had gotten some books that talked about the fact that cholesterol was a little bit of a myth, and that he could manage it through diet, and he convinced his doctor that this is the way that they were going to do it, and he was going to come off the cholesterol medication. Well, since he was very passionate about not being on cholesterol medication, the doctor just quit telling him the truth every year. So he would just appease him and say, you know your cholesterol is high, but I know you’re managing it through diet. And he said, yep. And he would leave. Well, he got a new doctor, and he told the new doctor the same thing. He said, Look, I know it’s high, but I’m managing it through my diet, and I actually think that it can be a little bit high and not impact me. And the doctor says, You know what concerns me about this, and what really worries me about this is that you’re not worried about this. And if I could just ask one thing of you, just please go get a stress test. If the stress test turns out fine, then I won’t talk to you about it anymore, but my concern is you’re going to die. And that hit him so hard, yeah, and he went and had that stress test, and two days later, he was on the operating table having quadruple bypass surgery. The scary part about this is the following week, he was supposed to go cross country skiing with his girlfriend, he would have never came back. He would have never survived that. The doctor told him that, and the week after that, he was supposed to be on a ski trip with me. He would have never survived that. And it was all because that doctor was willing to tell him the truth, the stuff he didn’t really want to hear, the stuff he didn’t want to hear. I know relationships are important. You want to have good relationships with people that are managing your money, but if you’re just staying with somebody because they’re a nice person, they’re sending you a birthday card, they’re maybe bringing you the dinner, you know, a couple times a year, but you know in your gut that you’re not really getting the planning that you should be. And we all know that feeling. We all know that feeling when we’re not being serviced Well, right? We walk out of there and just go, nice guy, but I’m not getting anything. And I had that situation with a tax account. Matter of fact, the tax accountant was my professor at Robert Morris, you know, university, and I thought she was the smartest accountant in the world. Of course, I was a young kid. She was my professor, and as I was building my companies, she took care of my taxes well. As my company grew and I became more educated on taxes, I started realizing that there were things being missed and things that I could be doing to make the company more tax efficient, and I had to make the decision of breaking that relationship up. And you know, it took me two years, really, to break that relationship off. And I tell you why, because every time I would go in, she knew me so well. She would ask about my family, she would ask about my mom and dad, and I would go in every time with the intentions to break up with her, and I would walk out and still be with her, right? You know, maybe some of you have done that with a boyfriend or a girlfriend, or maybe you’re doing that with your husband or wife right now.
Rebecca Powers 23:30
Oh, gosh, we can’t start a marriage counseling show.
Brian Quaranta 23:34
But the point is, is that you’ve got to get really honest with yourself, right? And you can’t be afraid to take that step and say, you know what? I am going to go have somebody else look at this. And the reason why most people are afraid of somebody else looking at their money is because they’re afraid they might be criticized for what type of investments they own, or what they’ve been doing over the years. You don’t get that at secure money advisors, we look at it objectively. We share with you the information that we find. And if you want to make changes to make your situation better, that’s up to you, but you may come in and find out that everything’s fine, and boy, what a great feeling that would be. And
Rebecca Powers 24:10
And one of the ways it was easy for me to break up with my old one, that’s probably 10 years ago, was when you go in. Michael had said it a few weeks ago, and we had him on our show. He said they literally called the annuity company with you sitting right there at the table. And when you hear that on speakerphone, you stay quiet. But when you hear your staff ask these questions, they have to give those answers, that’s right, and when they give those answers, you’re like, holy moly, yes, that was when I went, okay, right?
Brian Quaranta 24:38
And the thing is, it’s not the advisor telling you it No, it’s the company that has your money, and they’re telling you just have the advisor facilitating the call to get the right answers right. And when you start to hear the answers being answered the right way, and you start to look at all the facts, the next thing you have to ask yourself is this. Yeah, if you would have known all of these things prior to signing the paperwork to go into his account, right? Would you have ever signed that paperwork? And the answer is usually no, it’s absolutely not. I would have never done that had I not known that. Yeah, absolutely. What
Rebecca Powers 25:13
do you think is another good piece of advice about the breaking up?
Brian Quaranta 25:17
Well, I mean, at the end of the day, I think you just have to do it, right? Yeah, and you know, your money should be treated like a business, right? It’s nothing personal. The business needs the very best advice that it can get. And that may sound a little harsh, right, but it’s not you.
Rebecca Powers 25:38
Talk about your money for the rest of your life, even if it’s your daughter’s best friend that you’ve been with for 30 years, they’re not going to be there in 20 years to pay your mortgage.
Brian Quaranta 25:46
That’s right. Well, great point. And I’ve said this before, right? I mean, if your plan doesn’t go in the right direction, and let’s say, you know, most of the big box firms are going to typically invest your money all in the market, they’re going to have you take out systematic withdrawals on a monthly basis, probably follow something called the 4% rule, and they’re going to hope that the investment portfolio that they have you in is going to perform enough to maybe maintain your principal or even grow the money a little bit. But that’s no guarantee, because every piece of paperwork you sign says that past performance doesn’t guarantee future performance, so it say it’ll print. It also says, If we lose all your money, there’s nothing you can do about it, right, right? So why are we signing into plans that may put us at that level of risk? It makes no sense to me. So to have something more secure, to have something that’s going to give you peace of mind, makes a lot more sense to me, and this is why I always say not everybody that comes into our firm for a second opinion is a good candidate for what we do, because there’s people out there that have no problem with risk. They don’t really care. They’re taking systematic withdrawals. They’re like, You know what? I feel confident enough that the market will do what it needs to do, and we’ll make enough money good for them, right, right? But there’s a lot of people out there that can’t stomach that. I’m not like that at all. They can’t do that. So folks, go to on the money offer.com get a copy of my book, read through it, mark up the pages, take notes in the margins. I want you to understand this planning process. It truly will help you. It’s going to benefit you. To give you clarity, my concern is, there’s so much noise in the marketplace today. There’s so many people giving you opinions of what to do. This will clear it up, because a confused mind becomes a paralyzed person, and I don’t want you to be paralyzed. Call 1-888-382-1298 my team standing by to get you a copy of the book and get you scheduled for a complimentary appointment.
Rebecca Powers 27:45
And we said this before it even comes in a gold envelope like Willy Wonka, like this is your winning ticket, even if you don’t like to read, look how short that is. Thank you so much. Give us a call. We hope to meet you soon.